ise a man of affairs,
but his life work was his historical writings, which, had we all of
them, would fill probably four moderate-sized octavo volumes.

To sum up, then: Thucydides and Tacitus are superior to the historians
who have written in our century, because, by long reflection and
studious method, they have better digested their materials and
compressed their narrative. Unity in narration has been adhered to more
rigidly. They stick closer to their subject. They are not allured into
the fascinating bypaths of narration, which are so tempting to men who
have accumulated a mass of facts, incidents, and opinions. One reason
why Macaulay is so prolix is because he could not resist the temptation
to treat events which had a picturesque side and which were suited to
his literary style; so that, as John Morley says, "in many portions of
his too elaborated history of William III. he describes a large number
of events about which, I think, no sensible man can in the least care
either how they happened, or whether indeed they happened at all or
not." If I am right in my supposition that Thucydides and Tacitus had a
mass of materials, they showed reserve and discretion in throwing a
large part of them away, as not being necessary or important to the
posterity for which they were writing. This could only be the result of
a careful comparison of their materials, and of long meditation on their
relative value. I suspect that they cared little whether a set daily
task was accomplished or not; for if you propose to write only one large
volume or four moderate-sized volumes in a lifetime, art is not too long
nor is life too short.

Another superiority of the classical historians, as I reckon, arose from
the fact that they wrote what was practically contemporaneous history.
Herodotus was born 484 B.C., and the most important and accurate part of
his history is the account of the Persian invasion which took place four
years later. The case of Thucydides is more remarkable. Born in
471 B.C., he relates the events which happened between 435 and 411, when
he was between the ages of thirty-six and sixty. Tacitus, born in
52 A.D., covered with his Annals and History the years between 14 and
96. "Herodotus and Thucydides belong to an age in which the historian
draws from life and for life," writes Professor Jebb. It is manifestly
easier to describe a life you know than one you must imagine, which is
what you must do if you aim to relate